[gambiting]

I just don't understand. If there really is $236M on the line then services of any company that could unlock it would be worth any asking price. I'm sure there exists someone willing to take the challenge for a big enough slice of it. There's cybersecurity companies everywhere.

Maybe let me put it this way - he has basically unlimited money to do this. At that "price point" you could hire the best specialists in the world to crack this.

[piracy1]

IDK, maybe ironkey is just really secure. I knew someone who worked at a nuclear research facility for a major defense contractor and they used them. If the US gave them the green light I bet you they had the NSA poke at it.

[gambiting]

Sure, but there are companies like the Israeli NSO which apparently has cracked the uncrackable iPhone secure enclave, I can't believe that for the right amount of money they wouldn't take a stab at it, or at least try to figure out a way to have unlimited password tries for this guy. Idk, maybe I'm being naive.

[curryst]

Well, to be clear, they'd be working on contingency. Unless this guy is otherwise wealthy, he probably won't have a million dollars laying around to give them.

I wouldn't hold my breath on companies willing to work on contingency to break a piece of crypto the US government uses. Not that the government is particularly competent at this, but it's a reasonable bar. Plus there will almost certainly be legal issues stemming from cracking devices the government uses.